Protecting your business’ brand has never been trickier. Evolving cybersecurity threats, sprawling supply chains and scrambling regulations all mean that companies must keep an ever-closer eye on their ethics and compliance practices to steer an organization away from risk.
To help compliance officers with that increasingly difficult task, Denver-based Convercent’s “Ethics Cloud Platform” helps businesses identify, characterize and mitigate issues around ethics and compliance. The goal is to build organizations where employees and internal structures preclude the possibility of harmful violations like conflicts of interest, corruption and GDPR violations. In pursuit of this goal, the platform deploys a number of tools and functions, including employee education programs, policy management, incident analytics and more.
Executive Vice President of Product and Engineering Scott Schell took over Convercent’s research and development efforts a year ago this month. Since then, Schell has overseen an increase in processing capacity, enhancements in reporting technology and the rollout of several new features, including an “Interactive Code of Conduct” functionality and a benchmarking tool. To learn more about what’s ahead for Convercent, we asked Schell to walk us through the ongoing evolution of its software, and his long term vision for the team.
We hear that your team has worked on some interesting projects lately. Tell us about a problem you had to solve, the tools you used and how your solution changed throughout that process?
In addition to releasing new products and capabilities, we have undertaken a number of architecture projects that enable future growth. For example, some early architectural decisions in the company’s past led to difficulties in scaling up for our enterprise customers, often creating processing delays, failures and outages. We took a critical look at how we were managing database transactions and completely overhauled our platform’s underlying interprocess communication fabric. It was analogous to changing the entire wiring of a building — while keeping all tenants fully powered and happy.
How do you see Convercent’s product evolving in the future? What interesting technical challenges must your team overcome to achieve that vision?
We have a very clear product roadmap which, in part, includes deeper integration of AI, data science and behavioral science into the entire product line. This requires us to integrate with more data sources, hone our data processing and analytic skills and partner with leading behavioral scientists and university programs globally. For example, one of our next-generation product goals is to identify behaviors which tend to lead to risk, and help ethics and compliance teams to deliver the proper “nudge” before there is an incident. In short, we are helping ethics and compliance organizations become more proactive, rather than reactive, which ultimately allows them to drive ethics to the center of their businesses.
How would you describe the company culture at Convercent? How is it different from other places you’ve worked at in the Colorado tech industry?
The culture at Convercent is different than all the other places I’ve worked in my career in a number of ways. First, every employee in our company is committed in our mission to help our customers connect ethics to business performance. Everyone is truly engaged and working together to make a difference in the world.
Second, we truly live our values: focus, positivity, uncomfortable, curiosity, design and open and honest communication. Our customers run Convercent. We also believe in continuous improvement and regularly use “Five Why” discussions to uncover where things went wrong and how we can improve. In short, it’s the type of company with no secrets and strong camaraderie that we all want to work for.
What’s the biggest challenge you face as a leader? How do you overcome it?
The biggest challenge I’ve faced as a leader at Convercent is leading a transformational change of the R&D organization. When faced with this kind of fundamental change, many leaders struggle with prioritizing an often-endless list of goals and objectives. The result is that they get overwhelmed and their teams lose confidence. I have chosen to set an aspirational “North Star” for my organization that, while directional, resonates with everyone: to build a world class R&D organization. Based on that guiding principle, I then focus on three-to-five clear objectives that we collectively define, and which systematically define the work for each quarter. But really, the key is aligning around a collective vision, fostering collaboration and ensuring successful execution.
We look for candidates that are passionate about our guiding principle, which is that companies can ‘do well by doing good.’”
How has your background affected your leadership style?
I had the pleasure of working for Bell Labs early in my career, and learned that there is always someone in the room that is either smarter than you or has a better way of doing things, and that if you are not observing and listening, you’ll miss it. I listen intently to my team, peers and leaders and take their advice into consideration for everything I do. I also learned that every individual on a team has a job to do — especially me — and my job is to clear the path for them. I hold myself accountable to build the safest environment, provide the best tools and assemble the best team we can possibly have so that my teams can execute unfettered.
As your team continues to grow, what characteristics are you looking for in candidates and how do you ensure they’re a great culture fit?
We hire first for team fit, skill and intelligence. What makes our hiring process unique is that we look for candidates that are passionate about our guiding principle, which is that companies can “do well by doing good.” I’ve learned that it’s easy to find someone who is passionate about delivering software, but what makes Convercent’s hiring process different is our selection of individuals who are also passionate about delivering on our noble cause — “to drive ethics to the center of business for a better world.” That ensures we find candidates that have the grit required to stay with us for the long-haul.
